Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry

Septerna is a biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, CA on a mission to develop life-changing medicines for patients with the vision to become the industry-leading G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-focused drug discovery company. The company’s Native Complex Platform™ recapitulates GPCRs with their native structure, function, and dynamics outside of the cellular context. This approach enables novel access to modern structural and screening technologies used in industrial-scale drug discovery for the entire class of GPCRs. Septerna has an emerging pipeline of GPCR-targeted small molecule programs with potential for growth to target many GPCRs that have been undruggable and unexploited to date.

We are excited to expand our multidisciplinary team of individuals focused on creating revolutionary medicines to address the unmet needs of patients. At Septerna we strive to embrace diversity of thought, expertise, and background through collaboration. To join our ambitious team, be prepared to bring your real self to work every day; grow and learn from a talented team of drug hunters, scientists, and business professionals; and contribute your passion, creativity, and energy to accomplish our mission. We share a fearless pursuit of ground-breaking innovations and cultivate an environment where our employees succeed by learning from each other and working as a team.

We are committed to the development of meaningful therapeutics for patients with indications of high unmet need. This is a tremendous opportunity to work with talented individuals on the frontlines of therapeutic discovery and development. You will directly help move therapies through preclinical research, positioning them for success in the clinic. The successful candidate will add their passion, unique talents, and expertise to a dynamic team motivated to discover new disease-modifying therapeutics for patients in a fast-paced environment.

For more information see: www.septerna.com.

THE ROLE

We are seeking an experienced medicinal chemistry leader to direct our chemistry efforts for one or more of our drug discovery programs. Reporting to the VP, Medicinal Chemistry, this individual will design, implement and execute creative medicinal chemistry strategies to meet project objectives. They will collaborate effectively with various scientific functions and with senior leaders across the organization to align and execute on program goals and strategies.  As a focus, the individual will provide strategic, scientific and managerial guidance with a team of internal and external chemists and will have opportunities to serve as a cross functional project team leader for drug discovery programs, leading efforts from early discovery through IND filing. The successful candidate will become a scientific thought leader within our R&D organization, contributing drug discovery insights into all projects as well as ideas for new therapeutic programs. This will be an outstanding opportunity to collaborate with talented colleagues who all share a passion for developing new therapeutics that will make a difference for patients.

*Title commensurate with experience.

Qualifications

This position requires a PhD in organic chemistry with at least 15 years of drug discovery experience in a biotechnology or pharmaceutical setting. The ideal candidate will have experience leading chemistry efforts for programs spanning multiple target classes and therapeutic indications, and a track record of driving one or more programs which have yielded drug candidates entering clinical development. He/she will have deep expertise in medicinal chemistry, experience with structure-based drug design, and experience advancing compounds from early hit identification through candidate selection. The successful candidate will also have an outstanding scientific reputation within the medicinal chemistry community and a reputation as an emerging leader.

Requirements

• In-depth understanding of drug discovery processes that complement medicinal chemistry, including physicochemical property optimization, computational and analytical chemistry, ADME/PK, pharmacology, safety/toxicology, and CMC considerations.


• Extensive experience in designing and optimizing compounds to solve challenging issues across the drug discovery process to result in drug-like molecules as high-quality development candidates. Demonstrated application of structure-based drug design is strongly preferred.


• Strong quantitative intuition including experience analyzing large SAR data sets to drive lead optimization and analysis of hit-ID screening data sets to identify candidates for hit expansion and early hit to-lead chemistry.


• Contemporary expertise in all aspects of synthetic organic chemistry including synthetic route design, modern synthetic methodologies, and techniques for compound purification and characterization and parallel synthesis.


• Drug discovery experience with multiple target classes is preferred, and specific experience with GPCR drug discovery and/or development of allosteric modulators is a plus.


• A track record of successful management of external teams of chemists at contract research organizations is required. Experience recruiting and mentoring PhD-level chemists and leading cross-functional project teams is preferred.


• Outstanding communication skills with demonstrated ability to make effective presentations in a broad range of settings, and strong collaboration, leadership, and organizational skills.


• The successful candidate will be motivated to discover new disease-modifying therapeutics for patients and enjoy working in a fast-paced dynamic team environment.

The anticipated salary range for candidates who will work in South San Francisco, CA is $250,000 - $270,000. Individual pay may vary based on additional factors, including, and without limitation, job-related skills, experience, work location and relevant education or training. Septerna's compensation package also includes benefits, stock options, and annual target bonus for full-time positions.